


Exalted Doom

by tehhumi



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Background Character Death, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Gen, at least with a little reliance on Pengolodh the unreliable narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-05-01 18:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19183234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tehhumi/pseuds/tehhumi
Summary: Amrod swam away from the burning ships, and into a new identity.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The opening lines of chapter 2 are from the prompt "Waiting" from Fanfic Instability.

Amrod was on the ships, but when he saw Feanor approaching with a torch, he jumped.

He swam to shore. He figured is his family was going to kill him, he might as well leave - the plan had been to go back to his mother, but that was no longer possible.

He ran into a group of Nandor, and joined their community.

His old names didn't fit – he’s no longer the smallest Finwe, having rejected his house. He keeps half his name, and instead of Doomed or Upwards-Exalted, he becomes Exalted-by-Fire; the burning of the ships was what gave him the strength to turn from an evil path.

It takes him a bit to decide on this, dramatic Finwean he is, and in the meantime the Nandor called him Bright Eyes, for the Treelight reflected in his gaze. He says this is a more appropriate name for a horse than a person, and they compromise on calling him Star Bright

So Amrod hangs out is southwest Beleriand, avoiding Sindar and Orcs and Noldor and Men alike for over four hundred years.

 

The Bragollach, the Nirnaeth.

Beleriand isn't safe.

The Nandor decide to go east across the mountains. Amrod decides to see how the Noldor are doing - despite himself, he hopes his brothers are okay. He finds Nargothrond.

He says he is Rodnor Gil-Galad, called in his youth after his hair. 

Orodreth doesn't recognize him - Orodreth is young, born after the division between their families was already stark. Orodreth rarely saw Amrod in Tirion, and everyone saying he looks just like Amras means the brown hair throws him.

Celebrimbor does recognize him.

"What are you doing here?" "I'm trying to avoid our family!" "I thought you were dead!" "Don't you dare tell anyone you met me!" - excerpts from the whispered confrontation in Celebrimbor's workroom

Eventually they agree that yes, Feanorians are terrible and blindly loyal, and they're both glad to be out of it.

They spend time together, a bit, more as escapees from the same cult than out of a desire to reminisce about Tirion.

Celebrimbor accidentally mentions Fingon as if they both know him in public. People ask how Gil-Galad knew him. He fumbles and says they're related. Later he slips and says Celegorm “turned out to be the family disappointment after all.” That makes him pretty obviously Finwean, though he still doesn’t admit who.

Someone tries to draw him out, and spends a whole conversation deliberately referring to Maglor Feanorian, Fingon Fingolfinion, and Finrod Finarfinion.

Rodnor eventually says, “By that manner I suppose I’m Gil-Galad Erenion.” This shuts up the first guy for a moment, but people start speculating how he can be the descendant of multiple kings – did Thingol have any other kids?

 

Turin arrives; Rodnor has no opinion of him or of men in general, and no official seat on Orodreth’s council. When the dragon kills Orodreth and kidnaps Findulias, Rodnor leads the survivors away to the south. He feels bad about abandoning them, but the number of soldiers they ‘d lose rescuing her is too high, and just because a life is royal (or family) doesn’t mean it’s more valuable. (Feanor burned a prince, his son, as easily as he killed fishermen.)

His opinion on royalty isn’t widely held though. The people of Nargothrond have decided he is Orodreth’s heir and started calling him Lord Erenion. He declares that Cirdan is lord of the Falas, which gets people to at least decide bring some of their issues elsewhere, and tries not to stress about the details.

 

So Rodnor is in charge of the Noldor in Sirion. Galadriel is in Doriath. They do meet when it falls, but only for a few hours as the Iathrim refugees settle in, and she speaks more with Cirdan than with him. He tells her of the Nandor tribe he was with and their plans for the journey, and off she goes to the East.

After the council is over and every newcomer has a bed, Rodnor goes to Celebrimbor. They mourn privately those who neither of them dare speak of publically. Rodnor is back in his own rooms long before morning. He spends the next few weeks solemn, but everyone is gloomy after news of another kinslaying.

Gondolin falls. There are suddenly a lot more Noldor in Sirion. Pretty soon they're calling him King. He considers telling them it's not true, that the succession hasn't come to him yet.

On the other hand, having a leader be whoever happens to be the son of the previous leader is kind of silly. The Sindar tribe he was with acknowledged Elwe, but not Dior. Your leader was whoever you trusted to do right by the community. When Denethor died, his son took interim authority, and then they all met and discussed it and decided that actually Enellas knew how to manage people better, and so Denethor’s son stepped down.

If Rodnor squints, this is the same. At the very least, if the Nargothrondrim hated him one of them would have proposed crowning the ten-year-old Eärendil instead. So King Gil-Galad takes up the throne.

 

He was on Balar when the attack came. He told himself later he couldn't have stopped it, couldn't have helped. He could guess by how much more enchantingly beautiful the Silmaril around Elwing's neck seemed, that his brothers would attack soon, but not the month or day. And she was a queen, he could not order her to hand over the jewel. So all he did was warn her, not tell her his birth name, or leap across the council table and pull it off her throat. He could not have known there was no time to wait for Eärendil’s return. He had not set a watch on the island towards the city, but he had no reason to.

He did not want to kill his brothers, but he was a king and he could not let that make his decisions.

He can't stop himself from crying when he sees Amras's body. The Feanorians had tried to make a pyre, but must have left with it still burning and the wet sea wind had extinguished it, and the wood had barely caught.

"Relight the pyres."

"Your Majesty?"

"For the dead Feanorians, relight them."

"But they're murderers! They showed no such respect to us." Indeed, the city is still littered with the corpses of Noldor, Men, and Sindar alike.

"And we are better than they are. We will bury our dead, with a week of singing and lamenting, and tales of their deeds told by friends and kin. We will mark our people’s graves, and the Men will leave grave goods on theirs. And we will not leave the enemy dead to rot where they lie or be eaten by beasts, though they showed us not that respect." He sighed. "We have not fallen as they have, and we must hold onto that."

"Yes, your majesty"

"Have someone take a census of those who are left. And lists of the dead – ours and theirs." He needs to know how strong the rogue army was. If it is now leaderless, he would... he isn't sure. He wouldn’t have to declare a feast for victory over the Kinslayers, they'd lost enough of their own. But some kind of amnesty, with reparations, if any Feanorian soldiers wanted to rejoin... He thinks of the abstract plans now, while he is unsure, because he knows he'll barely be able to keep together if Maedhros and Maglor are dead and he is alone. (Three died last time.)

His eldest brothers are not among the dead invaders.

Lady Elwing and her sons are not found, either dead or living. Gil-Galad knows that his brothers would have no interest in taking her prisoner, for if she was under their power they could rip their glorious, wonderful jewel from her neck and cast her aside like so much wrapping. So he assumes that instead Elwing got away somehow, taking her sons with her. Whether the Feanorians have the jewel or she does is unimportant, he reminds himself, at least unless she returns. He decides then that Balar will never house the Silmaril – he'll bury it beneath the mountains with his own two hands if that's what it takes. His people deserve one place, just one, that isn't destroyed around them. Please Valar, grant them this, for Cirdan's sake if for none of the Noldor.

 

Ships come one day out of the West. King Finarfin leads them, and Eärendil is with them. Eärendil says that his wife Elwing escaped, but not the boys. (Eärendil is politely told he must either take off the necklace, stay on his ship, or go to the mainland.)

Gil-Galad realizes where they must be. It's hardly fair, but he knows at least they're being treated as well as can be. Maedhros and Maglor did alright by the five of them, and have never been cruel to children.

No one else seems so optimistic, though they are willing to believe that the boys are alive, even after seven years, simply to avoid believing the alternative. Gil-Galad and Finarfin cooperate to get a letter and a messenger (a newly arrived Noldo) that will be demanding but – hopefully – not provoke violence.

It takes two years more, with messengers from both parties expressing grave concern for the boys’ safety on a journey and reluctant to meet the other too close, but Elros and Elrond are returned. They meet Eärendil again, but he is on the front lines and so they spend most of their time in the camp. Gil-Galad has them sit in on strategy meetings to keep them occupied.

 

The war is over, Morgoth is defeated, and the Noldor are allowed to return.

Gil-Galad finds he doesn’t want to.

Returning had been as much about getting out of Feanor’s shadow as finding safety, and he realizes he has done the first and the second is near at hand. If he goes back to Tirion, he will be again Pityafinwe, one of Feanor’s youngest sons, half of the twins with a missing twin. The child so redundant his own mother had known so, and asked Feanor to leave her one of the youngest without care for which. Pityafinwe had led no armies, fought no battles, earned no praise. Pityafinwe killed Teleri and was murdered by his father, and did nothing else.

Sure, he could try to be both, admit he was Pityafinwe to start with, but no one will understand. The will see him as the usurper of the crown that should have gone to – Eärendil perhaps?  and then Elros? or Galadriel? Maybe they’ll weigh his victories in battle against his theft of the crown, and say they make up for it, but maybe they’ll say anyone could have done them, or he should have done them as a general in the real King’s army. So he’d be Pityafinwe, who pretended to be a king for a bit but understands now that it’s not his place, and that his place is to be the sixth-born son of the (dead, disgraced) Crown Prince.

Besides, they’re making the ‘leaders’ apologize for leaving, and Gil-Galad spent enough years wandering Beleriand safe behind Noldorin fortresses he can’t really be sorry they came.

Gil-Galad does write a letter though, to the Lady Nerdanel, his mother. He tells people that it’s commendations for her grandson’s valor, and assurance that Celebrimbor will be regarded on his own merits in the Age to come. The letter does contain those, but it also contains “You were half right about my mother-name; I was fated to die but leapt out of Fate’s way.” It’s rather blasphemous, but Gil-Galad isn’t going to be setting foot near the Valar again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the [ September 2019 fanfic instability prompt](https://fanfic-instability.dreamwidth.org/707.html)

His clothing fluttered in the slight breeze as he sat on the ground, admiring the view before him. There was an energy present, an earth power that pulsed despite the atrocities committed here by a few decades ago...and yes, the ones that were still going on. It was easy to forget all that, and be one with this place as it must have been hundreds of years ago, before people cast their diseased finger upon this land. He'd been led to this place, this very spot. And here he sat. Waiting...

"I ought to have you dragged back into the city in chains," Gil-Galad said to the figure who came up behind him. "I can't allow a murderer loose in my kingdom."

"How did you find me?" Maglor replied, staying a good twenty feet away.

"Swords recognize the forge, and kin recognizes kin. Besides, I've spent enough years with the Green Elves to pick up some of their tricks."

"I didn't think anyone else still remembered that saying, except perhaps Celebrimbor."

"Dad said it often enough. Generally when declaring various people 'not kin', but still."

Maglor startled. "Dad? But I thought I was the only one left?" He peered at Gil-Galad's face. "Amras?"

"No. I assumed that with him dead people would stop confusing us. I guess I was wrong."

"Amrod? But - you burned. We set fire to the ships, you burned."

"I don't know if you remember, but a burning ship is _loud_. I woke up and swam to shore."

"And never came back?"

"You tried to burn me alive, I had no reason to stay."

"We didn't know you were still aboard."

"If you had, would it have made a difference?"

"Of course it would!"

"And if I had told Dad that I refused to come ashore, and would head back to Valinor?"

"We still wouldn't have killed you!"

"Would you have let me, though?" Maglor looked away. "Never mind, I didn't come all the way out here to argue over things that happened centuries ago."

"Why did you come?"

"To tell you two things. First, as High King of the Noldor, I am exiling you from my realm. The duration is one year for each person killed at Doriath and at Sirion."

"What are the boundaries of your realm?"

"Principally, the lands west of the Ered Luin. If you're found here again, you'll be shot. from the southern end of the Ered Luin to the Hithaeglir is under my protection as well though, and you'll be considered a trespasser if found there. I recommend you head south - some of the Sindar are settling across the mountains to the east."

"Shot on sight for your last remaining brother, really?"

"Do you realize how much people fear you? Whenever there's reports of you near a village, half the people urgently visit friends out of town and the other half walk around arms. Whether or not it's necessary, there's a flood of parents bringing their children in from the coast each summer." 

"I don't want to hurt anyone."

"I believe you, but no one else will. You have to go." He paused. "The sentence is for twenty six hundred years, if you lost count."

"That can't be!"

"Seventeen hundred killed at Doriath. Another nine hundred dead at Sirion, counting those who abandoned you rather than massacre innocents. That makes eighteen yeni of exile."

"All of it on me, none on Maedhros, or Celegorm who had the idea of attacking in the first place?"

"You're the last one left. And a year of exile is really quite a low punishment for murder."

"You're left."

"I didn't attack Dior, or Elwing, or Eonwe. That brings me to my second point though."

"Which is?" Maglor asked despairingly, wondering what further punishment he was condemned to.

" _I didn't kill for the Silmaril._ I swore the same Oath as you, but I resisted. It took effort, and centuries of practice, but I didn't."

"Congratulations."

"That's not the point. The point is that you can resist it too, if you start practicing now."

"How exactly am I supposed to practice resisting the Oath when all three Silmarils are lost beyond recovery?"

"Admit that they're not beyond recovery, and do nothing anyway. You could dig in the earth for centuries, or trawl the bottom of the sea, and there would be a chance of retrieving them. Don't. Go live your life, knowing what the Oath wants, hearing it whispering what you must do, and ignoring it."

"Live my life far from you, a pariah from all other elves."

Gil-Galad shrugged. "I never said it would be easy. But it's better than giving in and seeing more blood on my hands."

"Does it ever go away?"

"It gets quieter, and I can go days a time with it there only as an idle thought rather than something to fight. But if the Oath disappears entirely, it takes longer than six hundred years."

"Can I ask you again? In twenty six hundred years, when I'm next allowed in your presence?"

"Of course. We've got little enough family left, after all."

"I didn't think you were acknowledging the tie. Last I heard, Gil-Galad was of Finarfin's house."

"I've actually kept it to house of Finwe, and whatever people speculate is their own fault."

"Sorry." 

The silence grew, as neither knew what to say to each other after so long, but Maglor had no desire to hasten his oncoming isolation. 

"Elros is planning to set out in a few years, along with his Edain," Gil-Galad finally said.

"I'm proud of him. You've been teaching him how to be king?"

"Some, though he knew a lot already."

And so they talked for hours of people they knew, skirting around their lost brothers and not mentioning Feanor at all. 

When the sun set, Gil-Galad stood up. "I need to be at the palace by morning. Your sentence will be proclaimed for all to hear in two weeks."

"I'll be gone by then."

"Thank you."


End file.
